The Dammed - The Ripple Effect: The Fate of Freshwater in the Twenty-First Century - page 162

before it actually isneeded. We should spend our money and effort to create new con-
servation and efficiency measures first. That would free up far more water, for far less
money, and with far less environmental harm than the governor's new dams.”
Lester Snow counterpunched, “We currently don't have the storage capacity to cap-
ture runoff in big-flow years. When we get a heavy rain, we're losing on average 450,000
acre-feet of water straight into the ocean. Last year, we lost 1.2 million acre-feet. If you
wait to build infrastructure today,it's going to cost you more to do it tomorrow.”
Gleick: “We spend a lot of money to capture, treat, and deliver water that we use in-
efficiently. New dams are an outdated solution. Assembly Bill 2496 [a bill to improve
toilet efficiency], which the governor unfortunately vetoed, would have saved farmore
water than these new da—”
Snow: “California has already spent two hundred million dollars on conservation
and efficiency. But no single water management action can meet all of our challenges.
The future is here. We need to use a 'portfolio' approach, which includes conservation,
recycling, desalination, water transfers, reoperation of existing reservoirs, groundwater
management, new surface storage—”
Gleick: “With all due respect, the water policy of the twenty-first century cannotbe
the water policy of the twentieth! We don't know what the benefits of surface storage
will be, who will use it, or who will payfor building these expensive dams….”
The debate went back and forth in this vein for some time. When I spoke to the com-
batants later, they agreed to continue disagreeing. “Lester is a smart guy, but all he really
said was 'We have to do everything,' ” Gleick complained. “It is a way to pretend to be
balanced, a way to avoid making decisions that piss off one constituency or another. But
we can't afford to do everything,and fortunately I don't think we have to.”
Lester Snow said, “Yes, I dothink we ought to try 'everything.' We have no choice.
Climate change is here, and it is the single biggest challenge we face in water manage-
ment. We can't afford to take any strategies off the table.”
Both Peter Gleick and Lester Snow agree that California faces a serious and growing
threat to its water supply. But their very different solutions to the problem have wide
implications for the state, the West, the nation, and much of the world.